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Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce is the lead fictional character in the M*A*S*H novels, film, and television series. The character was played by Donald Sutherland in the film and Alan Alda on television. About Cpt. Pierce Born and raised in Crabapple Cove, Maine, Hawkeye is (according to the TV series) the son of Dr. Daniel Pierce. According to the novels, his father is “Big Benjy” Pierce, a lobster fisherman. He attended Androscoggin College, where he played football and intercepted a Hail Mary pass thrown by Dartmouth quarterback John McIntyre. After his medical residency in Boston, Hawkeye is drafted into the U. S. Army and called to serve at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War. Between long, intense sessions of treating critically wounded patients, he makes the best of his life in an isolated Army camp with heavy drinking, carousing, and pulling pranks on the people around him, especially the unpleasantly stiff and callous Major Frank Burns and Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan. “Hawkeye” The novel established that Pierce’s nickname of “Hawkeye” was given to him by his father. It comes from the novel The Last of the Mohicans, which Pierce, in Hooker's book, claimed was "The only book my old man ever read." 1 In an episode of the TV series in which Hawkeye believed himself to be in mortal danger due to heavy enemy shelling, he made out a will and left Colonel Sherman T. Potter (whom Hawkeye stated was like a father) the edition of The Last of the Mohicans that his father had given him. “It was his favorite book,” Hawkeye wrote in the will, implying that he had read more books. Changes in the character Although the Robert Altman film followed Hooker’s book somewhat in structure, much of the dialogue was improvised and thus departed even from Ring Lardner, Jr.’s screenplay. The screenplay itself departed from the book in a number of details (e.g. Frank Burns became a major instead of a captain, and was identified with Major Hobson, the zealously religious officer that Pierce and bunkmate Trapper John McIntyre got removed from their tent and, subsequently, the camp), but on the whole, the main characters and mood were left intact. Perhaps the biggest change in Hawkeye’s characterization from the book, to the big screen and finally to the small screen comes in his marital status. The Hawkeye of the book is married to Evelyn Pierce with children (according to the sequels) and faithful while in Korea (as far as the reader is concerned). He offers several doctors love advice, "Jeeter" Carroll for example, extolling the virtues of extramarital sex but never partaking himself. The film version of Hawkeye is still married, but gives himself more moral leeway, arguing that he is far from home, no one is ever going to know, and it will reduce stress for both involved. Finally, the film’s Hawkeye was transformed into the womanizing and single Hawkeye of the TV series. In the pilot, however, Hawkeye told Lieutenant Dish that he was engaged and in a later first-season episode he broke up with several women, when he believed the war had ended, by telling him that he was married, although it was revealed at the end of the episode that he was lying. A later spisode shows in fact Hawkeye had a one year common law relationship with a nurse after graduating from medical college which he revealed to BJ after the woman in question is assigned to MASH 4077 as a replacement nurse. Richard Hooker, who wrote the book on which the show (and the film version) was based, noted that Hawkeye was far more liberal in the TV show (in one of the sequel books, Hawkeye facetiously makes reference to "kicking the bejesus out of lefties just to stay in shape"). Hawkeye in the television series The television version of Hawkeye proved to be a somewhat different character: While his professional and social life was much the same, he also gradually evolved into a man of conscience trying to maintain some humanity and decency in the insane world into which he has been thrust. This was to a large extent due to actor Alan Alda’s influence, as he infused the character with some of his political ideals and morals. Some fans regretted the change in Hawkeye, feeling that he eventually became too self-righteous and sanctimonious for his own good and the good of the show, and profess that Hawkeye worked better as a sardonic goofball. Developed for television by Larry Gelbart, the series departed in some respects radically from the film and book. The character of Duke Forrest was dropped altogether, and Hawkeye became the center of the MASH unit’s medical activity as well as the dramatic center of the series itself. In the book and the film, the Chief Surgeon had been “Trapper” John McIntyre; in the series, Pierce had that honor. In the book and the film, Hawkeye had played football in college (Androscoggin College, based on Hornberger’s alma mater Bowdoin College); in the series, Alda’s Hawkeye was hardly the football-champ type and even seemed proud of it and reveled in it, while his cohort Wayne Rogers’ Trapper looked sturdy enough to have played football. He seemed to resemble Groucho Marx, with his quick wit and “madcap” antics, sometimes even affecting a Groucho-like schtick. As noted above, Hawkeye had been married in the book and the film. Near the beginning of the series, he claimed to be married, though this was a ploy on his part to get out of marrying a nurse he had been involved with. Presumably this alteration rendered his romantic dalliances (chiefly with nurses) more morally acceptable in the eyes of Gelbart and the other series officials. (In general, Gelbart tried to make the series less deliberately offensive and more “politically correct” than the film while nevertheless retaining some of its anarchic spirit.) Also, in early episodes, Hawkeye tells his father (Daniel) in a letter to say hello to his mother and sister, but in later episodes, he is an only child and his mother died when he was young. There is also a reference in the episode “Dear Dad,” where he wrote a letter to his father, that their home is in Vermont and also in the Season 1 episode “Ceasefire,” but all other references, including in the book and film, are to Hawkeye being from Maine. Most episodes refer to the senior Pierce as a physician, but in at least one episode, BJ addresses him over the telephone as “Mr. Pierce.” {Pierce Service number was 19905607} In one spisode Hawkeye nearly drowned when he was very young; he also suffers from claustrophia both of which were childhood tramatic experiences for him. He also has fears of snakes. A running gag in the series is that Hawkeye is very disrespectful of the US military and everything it stands for-the only time Hawkeye follows US Army regulations is 1/17 when after a close friend of his dies on the operating table, Hawkeye reports an underage soldier to Major Houlihan and the MPs so the boy can be sent back to the United States. {Ironically the part was played by Ron Howard who was actually 18 years old!}{Sometimes You here the bullet} ; another time Hawkeye refuses to fudge Colonel Potter's high blood presure readings -stating that he agrees with army regulations! Five times in the series his characther is nearly killed off-once when he had to operate on a wounded soldier who had a unexploded grenade in his body; once when a wounded POW has a live hand grenade in the operating room; once when he is in a jeep accident and suffers a serious head injury and once when he takes a cat from a shell shocked solider the patient nearly breaks Hawkeye's neck; another time a hysterical anti communinst patient nearly stabs Hawkeye with a cane. In one very early episode Hawkeye claims this is his second war-implying that he had been in World War II as well-although it is never shown if he was stateside or sent oversees. Although a running gag is that HAwkeye has a fellow prankster in either Trapper John or BJ this does not always turn out-once the emotionaly pressure of being seperated from their loved ones got to be too much and both Trapper John and BJ tried to desert back to the USA-after hitting Hawkeye in the face! In fact after Hawkeye was once misreported as dead he tries to desert but only changes his mind at the last second because wounded are coming in! Pierce, Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Category:1970 M*A*S*H* film characters Category:M*A*S*H television series characters